Bittersweet
by Firebird Falling
Summary: The life of a Branded is full of bitterness, touched with the memory of sweet.
1. Micaiah

Bitterness is the aftertaste that comes after the sweetness has time to fade, and her life had been very sweet. And she had time. Too much time.

The sweetness of their time together was fading fast, and the bitterness welled up in her heart, murky as muddy water, sharp as the scent of burnt sugar. She missed him more than she could bear. Of course she did; how could she not? He had told her… told her not to miss him, to live the years – so many years! – that she had left with joy. How? She wanted to scream and scream and cry until she had nothing left, a river of tears and grief and pain that she could drown and leave this life behind. But she could not. She was Daein's Dawn, its Queen. The people loved her, grieved with her. The children threw flowers at her feet. They needed her, and their need tied her tighter than any chain. She was suffocating. No breath, her fingers twitching and pale, bloodless. She was crumpling beneath the weight of their love – was it love? His love had never felt this way – but she couldn't die. Wasn't that her problem? She wanted death, but did not have the courage to reach for it, not when there was still suffering she could cure, not when sacrifice was still her meaning, her calling. It was, it had always been. But she was never called upon to give them her death; no, she gave life. Over and over and over. He had been her strength, and now she had only the memory of him. It wasn't enough, but it had to be.


	2. Soren

Bitterness was a fire that burned in a heart once full of friendship, the fire that tore and charred and clawed but never killed, which was the greatest shame of all.

Of course he had known that his best friend –his only friend –would die before him. Long before. But it still hurt. He tried to forget, but his heart betrayed him. He had known –he always knew –that he had come to rely on this friend, this spring from which he drew the water of comfort, but had not realized the extent of that reliance. Had not realized that his death would bring a breaking that was not mere damage. Had not realized that his heart would not be shattered by the absence of that ever-present –he would say it –that love shown to him, but burned. The fires of anger and bitterness –ah, how well he knew them, though it had been long since he had felt their touch. And now there was no clean, unpolluted water to soothe him, no awkward words of friendship that were somehow heartfelt. And his heart did not break, did not shatter, did not snap like a fraying rope. No, his heart burned and melted and twisted and screamed, and still he could not forget.


	3. Stefan

Bitterness was wind, the scouring wind that ripped rich soil from its mooring and left only sand, bare dry sand that could not grow love, or friendship, or kindness, not even pity. It made a desert out of his heart.

After all these years –how many had he lived? Eighty? Ninety? He couldn't remember –he should be used to it. He had thought that his tears had long dried up, like the waters in his desert home, the home he shared with those he did not have to leave behind. But still it hurt, hurt like the wound fresh from battle, the wound that sours and rots and poisons the blood. Time hurt. And hurt. And hurt. Because it never stopped. It marched on, relentless, deaf to his protest, ignoring his prayers and curses. Every time he emerged from his reclusive life, every time he dared approach some other creature, a human with whom he could _speak_, a student with whom he could share his skills, it was joyous, it was wonderful, and then it hurt. Because Time held them tight, and they hardly knew it. But Time would not take him. It hurt. It hurt, like the sun bleeding into the sky, like the death of stars when the sun rose again, like the cut of desert wind with blades of sand into helpless flesh. Like the rot of flesh, the force of memory. Like a dying blow that would not end, life that went on and on and on when all he wanted was to die.


	4. Zelgius

Bitterness was irony, the painful twists that life took, the ones that made him laugh and cry in the moments that he had alone, the ones that the goddess was sure to mock in her secret place, that sadistic goddess that cursed his kind.

And what irony! The very things they most admired in him –his skill, his strength –were merely the side-effects of what they hated most. Or, the thing that they would hate, anyway, if they ever found out. And he couldn't see how they wouldn't. Why couldn't he grow old with these men, his fellow soldiers, the persecutors of his cursed race? How long could he dream of keeping them blind, wearing his armor, hiding his face? Could he, even now? Or was it a false dream, a screen of mist to obscure the truth he knew but could not accept? The truth was, his deception could not fool them, any of them, for much longer. And he was so far away from ever defeating his teacher. Ah, for those sweet days of training, when things were so much simpler. He hadn't known, then, what he was. He grew to love his teacher, to admire him, then to envy him, to fight that one battle over and over in his heart. Never hate, no, but so many emotions, all connected to that one man. But where was he? And how had time affected him, damaged him? Timeless, but not ageless, unchanged yet radically different, the man –though he looked little more than a boy, he was an old soul, a man –trudged on, seeking the purpose he had set for himself, and knowing the truth of the emptiness of his quest in a way that prevented him from ever accepting it. How the goddess must be laughing now, mocking the idiocy of his existence. Oh, the irony.


End file.
